Experimental Station

Research and Artistic Phenomena

14 May 2011 - 9 October 2011

CURATORS ANDRÉS MENGS AND VIRGINIA TORRENTE

ORGANIZED BY CA2M CENTRO DE ARTE DOS DE MAYO AND LABORAL CENTRO DE ARTE Y CREACIÓN INDUSTRIAL

Experimental station is an exhibition that presents works originated by an irrepressible urge which connects the artists to the purest part of scientific research. Departing from contemporary art pre-established guidelines, these creators share a certain fascination for extra-artistic themes, for what happens in the field of reality but also in the hereafter.

Formal research, pseudo-science, science fiction and paranormal phenomena are the experimental domains in which they are focused and through which they materialize their work. These creators do not give up on their capacity to investigate which can outgrow the limits of artistic creation in its contemporary meaning. This research in parallel areas that embraces from reality to lie is extremely interesting and is circumscribed to a marginal circle because of its own difficult location. An artist interested in cutting-edge technology applying it to its work for an aesthetic outcome is not the same as another one involved in a research where experiment is the piece per se and thanks to this research, the artist’s study becomes a lab and a trial, error and results field.

Both artistic and scientific devices lead us to places of change and discovery, whether it is with a real or imaginary purpose. We are referring to creation as a location for experimentation, and in this respect, science and art share a common aspiration: to conduct experiments that question our current knowledge, to look for a new frontier.

Science and art also share a common poetry: where do they meet and where do you they move apart from each other? Ethics and aesthetics are concepts that divide and unite them—a convergence point that invites both the artist and the scientist to think and reflect. One works in a brilliant space of observation, supported by knowledge and thorough procedures, in order to get and gather data. The other one gets in this restricted area through a parallel entrance.

Throughout history, a large amount of ideas investigated have led to breakthroughs but also to impasses. Utopias and failures, a commonplace of art and science.

ARTISTS

In the laboratory. Luis Bisbe, Carlos Bunga, Caleb Charland, Alistair McClymont, Rubén Ramos Balsa and Ben Woodeson.

Fieldwork. Alberto Baraya, Faivovich & Goldberg, João Gusmão & Pedro Paíva, Ilana Halperin, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimãraes and Jorge Peris.

Artefacts and Mechanisms. Julio Adán, Guillem Bayo, Ingrid Buchwald, Milton Marques, O Grivo, Ariel Schlesinger, Conrad Shawcross and Alberto Tadiello.

Lost in space. David Clarkson, Björn Dahlem, Karlos Gil, Lyn Hagan, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Esther Mañas & Arash Moori, Paloma Polo, Jan Tichy and Raphaël Zarka.

Publication (download pdf)